The invention relates to methods and systems for handling electronic mail communication.
Electronic mail (email) is a widespread communication system, used to exchange messages over computer networks (primarily the Internet). With email, a sender (or author) can send a message to one or more recipients quickly and at almost no cost.
The email system uses an open global addressing framework and a store-and-forward communication model based on open standards (e.g., SMTP, IMAP, and POP3). Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, at pages 623-646 (2011) and the Wikipedia article Email (2014), which are incorporated by reference herein, describe details of email messaging systems.
Each participant in the system has an email address typically composed of a user name and a domain name (e.g., john.doe@somecompany.com).
Each email address is associated with one or more email servers that handle incoming and outgoing communication on its users' behalf.
The low cost and ease of use of email result in a problem of information overload—knowledge workers often spend a significant part of their day going through email messages. Email systems give users a variety of mechanisms (e.g., spam filters, folders, labels, tabs, and rules) to help cope with the overload. These mechanisms may not distinguish between superficially similar email messages that have considerably different value to the sender and the recipient. For example, in an academic setting, an invitation to speak at a seminar may be sent to a few highly relevant recipients, or to hundreds or even thousands of recipients with the hope that some of them will accept the invitation. The former case indicates a higher relevance to the recipient than the latter case, but it's difficult for the email server or the recipient to assess the relevance just by reviewing the email message (e.g., checking for suspicious content) or the message headers (e.g., checking for email servers known to transmit spam).